Alton Middle Schooler competes in National Geographic Bee

Published 12:00 am, Monday, April 11, 2011

GODFREY - Sixth-grader Sam Tillman knows about many obscure places in the world and can find them on a map, which launched him to compete at the National Geographic Bee state level April 1.

The Alton Middle School student fell short of progressing on to national finals, missing two of his eight questions, but still finishing in the top half of competitors. Undaunted, he hopes the school will sponsor the program next year so he can try again to qualify for state competition - and maybe beyond.

"It was cool; I liked it. It was the top 101 kids in the state of Illinois" who qualified from among the 523 students who took the exam, Sam said.

He also topped his schoolmates, so as to be the only Alton student to go to the competition at College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, near Chicago.

"I like geography; there are so many places," Sam said. "I like to look at maps. They have thousands of things - cities and whatnot. It is cool to see how big (the world) is."

Sam, 11, also came away with a grand-prize drawing, a huge wall map of the world measuring 8 feet 3 inches by 13 feet 8 inches. All state-level contestants got certificates and T-shirts in a goody bag.

Mother Elyse said she is proud of her son making state level and doing as well as he did.

"He's in the sixth grade. That's not bad for the first time; some of them are in the seventh or eighth grade and have been there two or three times before," she said. "We were impressed. It was well worth it."

Although 101 students qualified, 98 of them actually attended the competition, overwhelmingly being boys.

The entire Tillman family of Godfrey - father Michael, Elyse and big sister Stephanie, 14 - and Sam's science and social studies teacher, Krista Ginestra, went to the bee. Only two other students in The Telegraph area went to the state competition, both from Edwardsville: Bobby Z. Luo of Woodland Elementary and Caleb C. Brandmeyer of St. Mary's School.

The state winner was Annie E. Ulrich, a home-schooled eighth-grader from Grayslake, who received $100. The national competition will be held May 24 and 25 in Washington, D.C.

Sam said he studied National Geographic magazines, its website and that of the Central Intelligence Agency's Factbook link to prepare for the competition. The questions blend history and general knowledge with geography.

The competition started with the 98 youths broken into five classrooms, with students answering eight rounds of questions. Those who answered all questions correctly or who missed just one question went on to compete until a winner emerged.

Elyse said there was camaraderie among the contestants and their supporters.

"Everyone felt bad when they missed a question," she said.

One of the questions Sam answered incorrectly was regarding the location of Fonterra Cooperative Group Ltd. dairy, on an island south of the Fiji Islands. He said "Australia," but the business is based in New Zealand.

When Sam isn't studying for a geographic bee, he might be perusing difficult spelling lists, as in March he made it to the semifinals of a regional spelling bee at Maryville University in West St. Louis County. He likes to play golf, is a cellist in the school orchestra and is in chorus.